There’s this old brain-teaser drawing of a young, fashionable lady who becomes an old hag after you stare at it for a moment. The predominant image is in the eye of the beholder. I was reminded of this drawing after watching the most recent presidential debate, because although we were all seeing and hearing the same thing, clearly I was seeing and hearing something entirely different than others.

The most striking result of that cage match was that the Republicans declared a Trump victory. You know that “yaddity-yaddity-yaddity” sound cartoon characters make when they whip their heads around in disbelief? That.

Aren’t debates scored upon the content of answers, the elegance of the delivery and the overall composure of the debater? In what sort of bizarro-world did Trump excel on any of those points?

Forget the bravado and bluster (which is pretty much all Trump has going for him), if you actually pay attention to what was said (google the transcripts), you’ll discover that Donald Trump didn’t answer most of the questions, even when the moderators repeatedly steered him back to the question. His strategy was to deflect the issue with inflammatory reminders about the horror of ISIS or to pour gasoline on the flames of irrational Hillary hatred.

The only specific actions Trump stated were his intention to grant huge tax cuts for corporations (Bernie supporters, pay attention) and to declare that once elected, he’ll use his political power to jail his opponent. This, of course, is what dictators do. Clearly Trump’s been studying the Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein playbooks. Whose strategies will he adopt next? Bashir-al Assad? Idi Amin? Hitler?

The debate brought to mind our local Academic Decathlon, for which I served as an essay judge for about 10 years. There was a scoring rubric for the essays, and one criteria was how well the student addressed the writing prompt. If the student didn’t respond directly to the prompt and rambled off into the weeds, his/her score was a zero.

Even by high school essay competition standards, Trump’s debate performance was “zero.”

On the rare occasions when Trump managed to stay on topic, he repeatedly just declared things to be “a disaster.” Our military, our healthcare, our inner cities… all disasters. Beyond the fact that these things simply aren’t true — even if they were, labeling the problem isn’t the same thing as solving the problem. When pressed for solutions or policy, Trump’s default answer is that he’ll “take a look at that.” Period. Taking a look at the problem also isn’t the same thing as solving the problem.

“That turd is a disaster!”

OK, so how do we clean it up?

“We’ll take a look at that.”

Trump is no more qualified to pick up after the family dog than he is to run our country.

Beyond the lack of content in his rambling diatribes, the way he lurked behind Hillary’s back was unsettling — particularly in the context of the avalanche of  evidence exposing his lifelong disdain for women.

Most of us women have experienced the sixth-sense feeling when someone is walking too closely behind us. Some of you reading this right now will immediately recall what that sickly gurgle in your stomach feels like. It’s a feeling of being stalked, like a prey animal, and it triggers the “fight or flight” response. Those of us who know that sensation of prickly heat down our backs surely flinched a little watching it play out on television.

Even more flinch-worthy was watching Trump repeatedly interrupt Hillary and shout her down. Even though she remained calm and composed, continued speaking and didn’t give in to this bullying tactic, in the end, he can yell louder than she can and she got drowned out.

All the women in the room: Raise your hand if you’ve ever been plowed over by this verbal bulldozing tactic, either personally or professionally? (Both my hands are way up.) How many times have you not been heard, simply because the male with whom you’re disagreeing can yell louder and, often times, longer? This is a simple male domination strategy. It’s how they’re wired. Men attempt to outshout each other, nose to nose, until one of them tires or concedes, or they just do what men do and start throwing punches. Most women aren’t wired this way, and even those who are, or learn to be, have a tough time out-yelling a man.

This behavior, taken in the context of the insults and indignities Trump has expressed and continues to express toward women, reveals that he is a sexist pig at best and a bona fide misogynist at worst. This alone disqualifies him from being elected president of a country where more than 50 percent of the population is female. Not only would his presidency put women’s rights at risk, but it would serve as a role model of the worst sort for our young men. Do we really want our sons to look up to a man who says it’s OK to grab a woman’s genitalia whenever he pleases? Do we really want our daughters to look up to a man who condones this? Moreover, isn’t it astounding that we are even having this conversation in the context of a presidential election? The bar of conduct has fallen so low, you’d have to dig it out of the mud to get underneath it.

Trump does not value old women (read: over 30) or ugly women (not beauty pageant contestants) and amongst the women he does value (beauty pageant contestants or those who look like them), he feels entitled to kiss and grab them whenever and wherever he wants, simply by virtue of his celebrity. Imagine how his sense of entitlement will balloon if we endorse his perspective and elect him president.

There’s another historical ruler who viewed women the way Trump does: as property. He had his way with them, married or not, willing or not (and they were all willing, because the other option was death), and tossed them aside or had them beheaded when he tired of them: Henry VIII. The parallels with Trump are uncanny, from the serial wives to the megalomania to the weird little round mouth.

Women have made great strides since the days of the Tudor court. Will we participate in electing someone who will shove us backwards, to the days when our value is measured by our sexual desirability? Will we elect a man who will have the power to appoint Supreme Court judges that can strip away all the rights women have achieved? Remember, Trump declared that a woman who has had an abortion should do time in jail. Yes, he said that too. It’s hard to keep track of all the misogyny that has tumbled from his mouth, just by the sheer volume of it all.

Don’t be duped into writing off Trump’s words in the recently exposed Access Hollywood tapes as merely “locker room talk.” Vulgar language isn’t the issue. It’s the vulgar intent, which declares that powerful men are entitled to do with women’s bodies as they please.